May 2, 2016

Alright, the day has finally come. Senator Trillanes is about to meet with Duterte legal counsel Atty. Salvador Panelo at 11:00 AM in BPI Julia Vargas in Ortigas, Pasig [Inquirer]. Assuming that Trillanes will bring a sworn affidavit, Panel will finally allow Trillanes and by extension, a public, a peek into his much-debated-upon bank accounts.

Now, the best question to ask at this point is…

What can we, as the public, expect to happen?
Thinking Pinoy can see five (5) possible scenarios. Let's discuss them in detail one by one.

Scenario 1: Duterte waives, Trillanes wrong

Of course, if Panelo reveals Duterte’s bank records and everyone finds out they’re okay, then everything is over and Trillanes can resign from the Senate as promised [Inquirer].

Trillanes also promised to withdraw from the VP race as a bonus but let’s be serious here: He’s not gonna win any, so who is he kidding? Even the more veteran (i.e. more forgotten) coup plotter Honasan has better numbers.

Scenario 2: Duterte waives, BPI system has limitations

If BPI, for some reason, cannot retrieve transaction information from ages past, then there’s nothing we can do here but wait. But then, most banks make the transaction information from the past year readily available so we can, at the last, verify the alleged 01 December 2015 entries.

Scenario 3: No affidavit from Trillanes, Duterte refuses

If the Duterte camp believes that this issue will barely affect Duterte’s lead in the polls, then Duterte will obviously look for an additional incentive to waive secrecy. That’s called bargaining.

Of course, the threat of impeachment is alarming, but it not most pressing issue at the moment for three reasons:

Assuming Duterte is innocent, he can get more bargaining time if he postpones the waiver.

Assuming Duterte is guilty, he can get more time to “fix” records.

Regardless of innocence or guilt, congressmen and to a lesser extent, senators, are generally known to realign whenever a new administration takes over Malacañang. So the 20% pro-impeachment House vote that Tony La Viña forecasts talks about can be avoided.

And most importantly, Duterte is not yet president. Why bother with impeachment right now?

Scenario 4: Duterte waives, Trillanes totally right

If all of Trillanes’ allegations about the BPI Julia Vargas account is correct, which includes the claim that all figures in the following table are deposits, then it’s time for us to re-evaluate our electoral preferences. Note, however, that this scenario assumes that all the BPI-Julia Vargas transactions are inbound (deposits), i.e. there are no outbound transactions (withdrawals) in the list.

This does not necessarily mean that ThinkingPinoy will switch sides. Instead, ThinkingPinoy will re-evaluate his presidential options while given the fact that Duterte would be pretty much proven to be politically corrupt [TP: Perspectives].

Regardless, whether you want to jump ship to another candidate or not is your choice and not mine.

I respect that.

Note, however, that I used the term “totally right”, which implies that all the alleged transactions are inbound transfers or deposits, and that none (or just a few of them) are outbound transfers or withdrawals.

Why? Because of Scenario 5, which is probably the most interesting scenario among all five.

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